Engineering a little happiness through the world of crafting

Main menu

Category Archives: Silhouette

Post navigation

I am trying to start again. The boys have gone back to school again and I was not ready. Life seems to be going to fast. They are now in 2nd and 6th grade. Yes, that would be middle school. Wow. I remember 6th grade… I moved to the US at the beginning of 6th grade. Anyway, back to starting again…

I crafted some this summer and as I did I reminded myself that I really enjoy it and need to keep doing it as a stress reliever and well because it is fun. So I am restarting… Here on WordPress instead of typepad. Thanks for following me.

My 7 yr old has the same 2nd grade teacher that my older one had. And I love her. Love her. She makes school fun and everyone wants to go to school everyday! She is smart too… She gives table points for good behavior and at the end of the week, if your table has more than a certain number of points, you get to pick a treat outta the treat jar. Great motivation!

Well I had to decorate up the treat jar…

Easy project… Cut the words and dots from vinyl on my silhouette machine. My silhouette has become a great friend these days. I’ll have to show you some more things it has made soon.

Last night was my neighborhood’s annual ornament exchange. It’s white elephant-ish without the tacky aspect. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I make my ornament. And true to form, I wait until the LAST possible minute. The boys got out of school yesterday and you all know how busy the last week has been! So, around 3:30 yesterday, I started on my ornament making! Once again, my Silhoutte saves the day…

I always try to do something that has to do with my neighborhood but this year I decided to do something about Austin. I really couldn’t top last year’s ornament (and I JUST realized I never posted it!!! WHAT? It is my favorite of all the ornaments I’ve made for this exchange and I can’t believe I didn’t post it yet!). I have wanted to make a Austin skyline ornament for a while.

So, here is 2011’s ornament:

AND THEN THIS YEAR’S 2012:

That’s about it! Hope your holidays are going well. And that you find time to enjoy your time with family and friends!

Two teachers at my boy’s school are getting married (to each other!) this Saturday. I just found out yesterday that there is a faculty shower for them today. No, I’m not faculty but I feel like I live there. I wanted to make them something to keep forever. And with the holidays coming up, I thought an ornament would be good.

And you all know how I love my Cameo! I started about an hour ago and while the photo isn’t great, the ornament looks lovely! THANK YOU Cameo for being so easy to do. I love glass etching too!

Back again for another installment of Teacher Time… you know stuff for Teachers! 🙂 Today's theme – CANDY.

Well, originally when Jennie and I were planning this, our theme was supposed to incorporate the Target $ spot somehow. I kid you not… I spent 30 minutes there the other day and NOTHING inspired me. It's probably because I have a room full of stuff and I need to use it! Or maybe it's just that my stamping mojo is still on summer break? I don't know. Anyway, candy seemed like a doable theme to me.

So, I dug around and found these cute little frosted glassine coffee bags in my stash. Hmm, when did I get those? I had some left over dots cut out from a previous Silhouette Cameo project in various colors so I used those to enhance the bags. Filled them with chocolate! Then I stamped a tag and voila, done.

Who doesn't like chocolate?

Don't forget to see what Jennie did for today's teacher time. It's really cute!

Stop by on Friday for the next installment of teacher time 2012!

Stamps by Paper SmoochesPaper retired by A Muse ArtstampsVinyl cut by Silhouette Cameo

So, as many of you probably know and experienced, this past week was Teacher Appreciation Week. My boys are very fortunate to have awesome teachers this year. In fact, they are very blessed with all the teachers they have had.

One of the gifts that I made from the whole class is this dollar plant (one for each teacher). I've done something similar before and CASED the idea from Jenn a long time ago.

I used my Silhouette machine to cut all the flowers and letters. There are 21 kids in each class and 21 flowers. They actually spell something with the teacher's name in it. It's hard to read but you can see it if you look from the top!

The $1 bills are the leaves. Pots from Michaels.

Hope all is well in your world. Busy here, as I'm sure you are too. School is out in 2 1/2 weeks! YAY for summer vacation. I'm ready…

My apologies for not posting since, uh, August, really? Wow, that's the longest I've gone without posting. I've been making stuff, I think. Who knows? Isn't it crazy how time is flying? My oldest said to me the other day… "Mom, this year is really flying by." WHAT? Kids are supposed to feel that way. I didn't that way when I was his age.

Anyway, so back to crafting. Silhouette has this DIY advent box kit for sale and since I threw ours away last Holiday season because it was broken in many places (it was cute… from Pottery Barn, I think, with little doors and such – it lasted several years!), I was tempted to get it. However, I don't have a lot of time to get it done. But then I kept seeing how other crafters had made one and read about how Silhouette gives you all the box templates and everything is all there for you. Ok, sold.

It came in Wednesday night before Thanksgiving! Perfect timing. Something to do during the holiday weekend! If I had to wait until next week, it would have been TOUGH to get it done by Thursday with the kid's school stuff getting in my crafting way!

The hardest part of making this… picking out my color scheme. I have boys. It has to be boy-ish. But I wanted it to look clean. I'm not a fan of red so the traditional red and green combo was out. I like blues. I typically lean towards snowflakes (ironic since I live in a 99.9% snowfree zone and don't like the cold). But they are pretty. In theory.

Silhouette is SO awesome. They even provided the template to cut the back of each hole. See the blue in the back here:

While this project took a few hours, it wasn't hard at all. I used white vinyl for the numbers and then the snowflake stickers are from Hobby Lobby. They turquoise and silver and are puffy and sparkly.

I hope you like it! My boys do and best thing is it's done and ready for filling for December 1st! Have any suggestions for what to put in the boxes?

Have a great day! Hope your Thanksgiving was full of reflection and family and friends!

OOPS. I'm a big loser. I didn't get around to posting yesterday. SORRY JENNIE! I'll make up for it. Today I'll post day 4 even though technically it is day 5. And I'll post day 5 by Tuesday (maybe even this weekend if I get my act together!). Be sure to check out Jennie's blog for our week of teacher time ideas! She's so clever!

Well, my day 4 project is really fun and I loved putting it together. I hope the teachers liked them. The are Survival Kits for their classrooms. I used these bead organizers from Michael's and filled them with all sorts of goodies. Used my Silhouette SD to cut the vinyl out!